New Fabric and a Finish

This last weekend I dug out a couple of fabric panels that I bought from a trader at Sandown quilt exhibition a few years back.  This is called Dolly Dress Up, by Holly Holderman.

These panels came with the briefest of instructions, which have since gone, but looking at her blog here from December 2009, there was a blog hop with several contributors with ideas of using the individual blocks.  They are dressed up with lace, buttons, ribbons or have added skirts and aprons. The panel above I've kept complete at present, but the other I've cut into 9.5" squares and preserved some of the pink and white diamond strips, which I might use later.

Today I went out with my friend Penny to find some fabrics that would go well with the dress up blocks as I had didn't have much in my stash

That's what a bought in new-to-me shop in Bournmouth called Sarah's Shabby Chic.

And from Mandy's shop, Cherry Tree Fabrics, in Boscombe. After lunch with Penny (nice to be a lady who lunches) and a drive along the coast road back to Poole and after dropping Penny off I went to Fabric Land to get some lace and pink bias binding for a postcard swap in June. 

I did manage some sewing this afternoon and made this cushion cover with an Oxford edge.

Front

Back.

This goes with the quilt in the guest room.  The quilt, Martha Washington Star had been made years ago and the cushion quilt top has been lurking in the UFO pile for a long time so am pleased to have finished quilting yesterday and joining the cushion back this afternoon.

A good feeling to have a finish.

Bloggers' Quilt Festival

Linking with Amy's Creative Side, Small section.

Debated whether this was mini or small, this little baby quilt that I donated earlier today to the local Project Linus group.

This is approximately 20" long and 16" wide so it is small. I used the strips that my Mum had left from another quilt that she made for Project Linus, which I could not resist using.  I also had a couple of fat quarters of a pale lemon for the front and a slightly darker shade on the back.  The stripe fabric worked well for the binding

Pop over to Amy's Creative Side to have a look at the Festival.

Wednesday Walk

David normally works from home as the company he works for is based in Yorkshire, but once a week he goes to a local office in Southampton.  He commutes by train so I give him a lift to Poole station, but before returning home I go for a long walk, usually around Poole Park.  Yesterday I varied my route and decided to walk along part of the harbour to reach the public boat slipway and back into part of the park before returning to my car.  It was a gorgeous day so took some pics with my phone

Looking towards the Purbecks in the distance, the dark green bit is Brownsea island, one of the islands in the harbour.

Looking towards Poole Quay, the big ship on the left is the Brittany Ferry which sails from Poole to Cherbourg, France. As you can see such a clear morning, this pic was taken at about 8 am.

I headed back towards Poole Park.

I like the quiet and calm first thing in the morning. This is looking from the model boating club over the the restaurant (the white building in the middle of the pic.

When I got back towards the car I saw the Barfleur set sail

Feeling blessed that I live in a lovely part of the country.

Three Inch Quilt

Yes, you read right.  My daughter and  now a friend of mine are just starting out on the quilting road. Sarah doesn't have a sewing machine yet and my friend has yet to dust off the one that she has, so hand sewing it has to be.  Having shown them how to do a Japanese Folded Patchwork block I've taking time to photograph a tutorial, so here goes.

Draw a square (in this case 3") on card and find the centre. Using a pair of compasses put the point in the centre of the square and take the pencil end out to just a smidgen beyond the corner of the square and draw a circle. Cut out

Next take the fabric for the circle and put the template and mark around the circumference.  Cut a quarter inch away from the marked circle, eyeballing it, or you can mark using ruler as here

Using tacking thread knotted at one end, sew a running stitch approx. one eighth inch in.  Replace the circle template to draw the tacking stitches in

Press the circle and remove the template.

Place the a square of wadding and contrasting fabric on top of the pressed circle

Fold the circle around the sides of the square and pin

Then tack.

Slip stitch through the top fabric, middle and wadding, but not right through to the back

Done in a very short time and as it's 3 layers it is a quilt. There you are - a 3" quilt!

I then made 3 more this afternoon. Working from scraps one block (the one above) is lighter than the other 3, but didn't have enough to make 4 in the darker green.

The middles are cut from some Japanese charm squares.

Green

The Quilters' Guild area day will be on Saturday and I have been making a piece for the Regional Challenge which, this year, is green. 

I've been trying to take a decent pic with the iPad but I think my phone takes better photos. I've done strip piecing with different widths of greens, recut and alternated with the dark green batik fabric.  After quilting in the ditch, I've then used the machines fancy stitches in some of the strips and free machining in the batik rows.  The back is pieced, too.

Just the label to put on and done.  I have to admit that I found this a diffcult one to deal with, but I went with using shades of green to reflect the different colours of leaves in a woodland setting.

Another bit of green I've been working on is my machine embroidered landscape.  Having missed the last session in April because of being in Portsmouth. I've a bit of catching up to do.  Here I'm using my little Janome machine to do some Granite stitch, some very dense machining, on some water soluble fabric. It's just dark green at present but I will add some other shades to merge in.  This is how it looks at the moment

So a lot of greenery around here.

Fabric Folding

Last week on our travels I bought a fat quarter bundle that was folded in such a way I daren't open them.

I took the bundle to Bourne Quilters last night together with another fat quarter which I'd also bought, but unfolded.  One of the ladies puzzled over and was determined to get it folded up and almost managed it.  Another said, look up on Google, which is what I did, lo and behold there was a tutorial here.  Easy peasy, I've now done it on this owl fabric

Googling, of course, leads to other things. Like this

A fabric samosa.  That was quite easy

Another triangle fold here, not quite so easy as you have to push one triangle into another

And this one here, which doesn't tuck into anything else, but looks pretty

Now, who else is going to go through their stash folding up fabric?  ;o))

Fresh Sewing Day

As it's 1st May, it's Fresh Sewing Day at Lily's Quilts

I've solved the problem of a ninth block for the Jolly Jungle Quilt I'm making and a quilt top done!

Here's where I left the quilt at the beginning of this week

And this was yesterday.

I'd taken 3 strips and created with the colourful striped fabric in the middle which provided a frame 

I have a backing fabric but will start on the quilting next week.  As much as I like this time off and doing  a lot of sewing, I must progress on some job hunting, which is going very slowly at present.  But I am pleased that I've done a lot ofsewing this last 

month.

Hastings

At Christmas we were given the present of a wine tasting experience at Westfield, near Hastings, just on the East Sussex/Kent border.  We booked for a tour last Friday morning, so travelled to our hotel on the outskirts of Hastings on Thursday.  As we had plenty of time we had stops along the way on the coast roads David visited a railway model shop just outside Arundel, and we took a lunch stop around Littlehampton to enjoy a picnic on the deserted west beach there. We had another stop at Worthing and went to a fabric shop, Eclectic Maker.  It's a modern fabric shop so any thoughts of getting some purple/red/pink batik type fabric went out of the window. Instead I bought this

I've undone the woven ribbon, but not the fabric, yet.  It was so neatly folded and tucked and if I undid the squares I wouldn't be able to put it back the same way! The photo doesn't do justice to the delicate quarters of golds, yellows, creams. I did get another 2 fat quarters, a newsprint one which was folded the same way, but you've guessed it, didn't go back together again.

In contrast to the sunny day when we travelled the Friday was cold, grey and damp.  We had a brief tour of the vines at the winery followed by a wine tasting.  We tried samples of 5 wines, some sparkling, a couple of fruit wines and followed with lunch and glass of wine.  We took a taxi into Hastings then had a look around the Old Town.
 

It was a grim day!

David took a photo of the mosaic on the underpass

And here he is on the beach, going to take a photo of the pier.  I stayed on the pavement as I didn't fancy walking across the stoney beach.

The tall fish sheds for drying out the nets

The two pics above were from one boat.  The bottom photo was showing a fisherman's cottage

A funicular railway with the carriages moving.

Stained glass window in the fishing museum (formerly a church building)

more boats

On Saturday we took the trip home but instead of taking the coast road we headed north towards Tunbridge Wells and across Sussex before taking the motorway from Gatwick before heading towards the M3 and home.  On the way we stopped at David's brother's place in Surrey.

But before getting there it was out with the NT cards again as we went to Bodiam Castle, built in the 14th Century with quite an impressive moat.  The ruined castle had murder holes above the entrances so they weren't that welcoming to strangers!

It was onward to Scotney Castle which has two buildings, a house owned by the Hussey family and the former castle at the bottom of the valley which was made into a ruin by its owner, but makes a lovely view from the house.  The azaleas and rhododendrons were making their impact on the garden with their flowers which added to the lovely vista.

The main house at Scotney Castle

The Castle

The tiniest daffodil I've ever seen, in the grass bank

Just look at that colour!

Quirky pic of the castle

Looking from the castle to the house

More rhododendron loveliness